Join the journey with digital marketing virtuoso Darrell Evans as we dissect the ever-changing landscape of digital media. Darrell brings his wealth of knowledge from real estate to YouTube stardom, providing a roadmap for success in utilizing email marketing and video content. Our conversation is a treasure trove of insights, sharing how innovation and adaptability can not only navigate but conquer challenges, like those faced during the 2008 recession.
Peek behind the curtain of digital strategy as we discuss the evolution of our agency, from its roots in real estate to a digital powerhouse harnessing tools like HubSpot to optimize operations. The importance of a buyer's journey-centric approach is illuminated, revealing the potency of SEO and email marketing in bridging meaningful connections. Moreover, he unveils the art and science of crafting compelling social media content and navigating paid advertising landscapes, ensuring every message resonates with the intended audience.
Cap off the adventure with wisdom from the MindShift framework, an intimate revelation from his personal life that has reshaped his approach to entrepreneurship and fatherhood. Learn how this philosophy not only transforms professional strategies but also fosters the invaluable power of relationships in the digital space. With anticipation for future collaborations, our dialogue extends an invitation to join in, share your questions, and influence the ongoing conversation as we explore the dynamic world of digital media management.
This podcast is proudly sponsored by USC Annenberg’s Master of Science in Digital Media Management (MSDMM) program. An online master’s designed to prepare practitioners to understand the evolving media landscape, make data-driven and ethical decisions, and build a more equitable future by leading diverse teams with the technical, artistic, analytical, and production skills needed to create engaging content and technologies for the global marketplace. Learn more or apply today at https://dmm.usc.edu.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Mediascape insights from digital
changemakers, a speaker seriesand podcast brought to you by
USC Annenberg's Digital MediaManagement Program.
Join us as we unlock thesecrets to success in an
increasingly digital world.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I am so thrilled today to have a long-term
colleague, friend, fellowpodcaster, daryl Evans, on the
show.
Daryl, you are an investor, agrowth partner, a fractional CMO
, a co-founder of a business,you have a podcast, you write
books, multi-talented,multi-hyphenated serial
entrepreneur.
Thank you for being here.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Oh my gosh, writing a book not writing books, but
writing the first one is one ofthe hardest things I've done.
But yeah, thanks Annika forhaving me.
I'm super glad to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Yeah Well, and the first book, I'm sure, will lead
to the next, I have no doubt.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
That's how it kind of works.
That's what they say.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
You are one of my favorite people to talk to about
the digital ecosystem becauseyou've been personally helping
me You've been my tutor, if youwill on how to make the best use
of the behind the scenesintricacies of digital media and
making sure, because you knowthat I teach these classes.
But I also usually work on thestrategy side, creating the
(01:22):
personas, the brand messagingand then hand it off.
And so I was like let me getreally into the back end, the
details, the nitty gritty, sothat I have a better
understanding of that.
And you've been in thisbusiness for quite a while.
That's why you're such anexpert.
So I'd love to hear how did youget into the business?
And I know you've had somepivots and have some ones
continuing along the way.
And I know you've had somepivots and have some ones
(01:43):
continuing along the way.
So that's also a reallyimportant thing to me is to talk
about those pivots and thenwe'll get into some of the nuts
and bolts.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Sure, yeah, absolutely.
So.
The agency started roughly 13years ago, 2011.
So I guess, started withdigital around 2003.
And at that time I was in adifferent industry, owned a
different business, co-owned adifferent business at that time
in the real estate and lendingspace, and so I was actually in
both sides of that industry forquite some time, kind of
(02:10):
overlapping 17 years combined.
But I got started with digitalat that time for one reason and
one reason only, and it was tworeasons.
Number one leverage incommunication, and that would
have been with email marketing.
One leverage in communication,and that would have been with
email marketing.
And then the second kind ofdriver was the sheer need to
(02:30):
have a way to manage my day, tobe quite honest.
So we're just starting to seeemail come out.
At that time, and at that timeI was taking 20 to 30 or 40 new
prospective clients in per month.
I'd have five to 10, maybe 15in process.
Each of those people in processcould be involved with real
(02:56):
estate transaction.
There could be five to sevenstakeholders that are involved
in any way or shape or form.
So I was having thiscommunication challenge because
it was always phone calls backthen to take those listening
audience members who are sonative to text messaging back.
We used to make phone callsback then quite a bit, and so
that was the thing.
So it was first email and thenI realized, oh, we can actually
(03:16):
generate leads, we can buildwebsites.
And it was obviously a littlearchaic back then.
But to fast forward, I learnedso much doing digital in those
early days email, then design awebsite and then getting on
LinkedIn.
I started my first YouTubechannel in 2007 to help
communicate.
So now I'm taking 50-ish phonecalls sometimes in a week and
(03:37):
I'm saying the same things overand over again and again I'm
like, oh, there's got to be abetter way.
Thank God for YouTube, right?
Thank God for YouTube.
And so I didn't become aYouTuber.
I wanted to simply answer allthe frequently asked questions
that people were asking me everysingle week and the answers
were the same.
So every person who asked itwas super important that they
(03:57):
get an answer specific for them,but the general answer was the
same.
So I said, oh, let me nowrecord all the answers to the
frequently asked questions thatthey might have about FHA loans,
conventional loans, va loans,the home process, the escrow
process, the appraisal.
So I just recorded them all,and back then it was a different
(04:17):
process than using oursmartphones or Zoom technology.
Funny side note when we wouldrecord the videos back then we
would transfer them from acamera, camcorder or whatever we
used to use.
It would go through a thingcalled a fire wire that you
plugged into your computer andthen set it up from the camera
to your computer and it wouldliterally take well, I do it
overnight, because it took solong, it was so funny.
(04:39):
And then I started gettingtraffic from YouTube, meaning I
started getting calls fromYouTube and the call started
changing.
So the dynamic was hey, I needyou to help me with my home loan
.
I'm like great, how'd you getreferred to me?
And we're like oh, I found aYouTube channel.
I watched all your YouTubevideos.
When can we get started?
Oh, and then it was like thelight bulb went on this is
(05:01):
2007-ish into eight and themarket, of course, crashed in
eight.
So it gave me thoughts abouthmm, I'm onto something here and
not many of my colleagues seemto be.
And then I realized there was abigger, because I had a lot of
investor clients in the realestate and lending industry and
I realized, oh, these businessowners, business owner clients
too they're like oh, they'restill doing things the old way.
They don't even know about thisstuff.
(05:22):
So me and my former co-founder,we met at the time 2008.
He saw me continuing to grow mymortgage practice through the
pandemic or not the pandemicthrough the recession, through
the crash, and he's like how areyou getting all this business
when everybody else is suffering?
And it wasn't.
I did have a collapse, let mebe clear, really a big collapse.
But I resuscitated my businessso fast through digital and
(05:45):
everybody was like how are youdoing it?
And I'm like I don't have timeto teach you, I'm trying to make
a living.
And anyway, one thing led toanother and we were like, oh,
this is actually a new thing andit's not going away, it's only
going to get bigger.
And I'm like I think I want tobe a part of that.
So that's how the agency gotstarted.
That's how we got to where weare 13 years later hundreds and
hundreds, if not, betweenteaching, coaching and doing the
(06:06):
done for you work.
You know probably over athousand companies now and you
know hundreds of millions ofdollars in revenue for clients.
So it's been an interestingjourney.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
That is a very interesting journey and it's
funny how life creates thesetippets for us.
100% creates these pivots forus.
You started one industry.
You were looking for a solutionfor yourself and, like most
great providers, the solutionthat you found for yourself that
worked so well you were thenable to pivot and create
solutions for others, and thatinvolved a lot of local SEO,
(06:37):
local advertising.
At first, what did thelandscape look like compared to
now?
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Yeah, at that time, I mean it was in our company name
.
Our agency name at the startwas Yoko Local, yoko Local
Internet Marketing and we were,we were very tied to the local
community because we weremortgage and real estate.
I come out of the mortgage andreal estate practice and even
though I did have a license inmultiple states, I focused on it
was mostly in my backyard, andso we did.
We jumped right in to helpbusiness owners because at that
(07:03):
time we're in the middle of arecession right, we're in the
recession of the 2008, 2009, 10era and we're like, hey, stop
advertising in the doggone phonebook.
They're charging you five grand.
Are you serious right now?
So it was local SEO, building onthe website, it was organic SEO
, and Google ads came into playpretty quickly and then, of
(07:24):
course, it migrated and morphedinto 2013.
We're now doing email, we'renow doing social media, where, I
mean, we really quickly pickedup, and then the evolution of
that became a problem, becausenow we've got all these
different customers and allthese different industries,
mostly local at that time,although we did start to pick up
some bigger international ornational accounts, if you will.
But now we started managingeverybody's technology and it
(07:45):
was like, ooh, this person hasWordPress website and they have
constant contact, and they havethey.
Just everybody had differentstuff and that became a problem
to scale.
So I started looking at thesolution, a solution like oh,
this is going to be a problem ifwe always have to hire a
specialist to work on theirthing.
So we started looking atHubSpot at that time and a
(08:07):
couple of years later, wedecided to go all in and become
a partner with HubSpot, aftertesting a number of other
platforms.
But so we've been a HubSpotpartner since 2000, late 2015.
And not every one of our clientshas to be on HubSpot.
That's not a requisite, but itis important to understanding
the complete solution ofefficiency data reporting.
This was early days beforeZapier really took off, so we
(08:32):
didn't have good APIs back then,so it was just tough to keep
the data collected and in thesame place and synchronized.
And then the other big problemthat we had to solve with
HubSpot that helped us was wewere an agency and we kind of
owned their accounts, so we werelike we need to give them their
own stuff, yes, so that ifthere is a breakup, they don't
(08:54):
lose anything Like transferringthem.
Their data was a problem, soanyway.
So that was kind of the journeythere, and we've, of course,
now moved into all sorts ofindustries because we operate
with a framework.
Not so much we don't operate ina niche, we operate against a
framework, and it's heavilyabout the buyer's journey, not
the tactic.
So we're a strategy companythat executes tactics, but it's
(09:17):
all about understanding ourclient's customer journey, and
once we understand the customerjourney, we can put our playbook
against it.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
I love the nuance of that, because we're always told,
as business owners, you mustfind your niche, you have to
find your ideal customer persona.
And you're saying it doesn'thave to be a niche, it can just
be the commonality of thejourney.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
I really believe that when we're talking about
digital marketing now I'm notsaying niching down isn't
helpful for some, but it doesn'tscale If you really look at it.
You can grow your business andyou can get to multiple millions
of dollars if you stay in onespecific niche, but it isn't
going to actually scale to.
The highest level is thathumans do similar things along
(10:05):
their path to solve a problemwith a product or service, no
matter what the problem is, whatthe product or service is.
But if we can understand that,oh, if I get in a car accident
today and I might have a caseand I'm looking for a personal
injury attorney, there arecertain things I'm going to do
and behave in a certain kind ofway, oh, but oh, if I'm wearing
glasses and I do, but I'mplaying golf and my glasses are
(10:28):
coming off, or I'm playingbasketball and someone breaks my
glasses, then I might decide Iwant LASIK eye surgery so I
don't have to wear the glasses.
Well, I'm going to go on acertain journey to figure that
out.
But if I end up in a restaurant, if I'm in a state or a city or
a country I've never been inand I'm trying to find the local
restaurants that are notcorporate-y but they're in the
community.
I'm going to go on a.
(10:48):
So we just try to focus on thebuyer's journey.
And once we understand thatbuyer's journey, the tactics all
work the same.
They just change.
The cadence might change, thestructure might change, but the
platform the playbook, as I liketo call it, the playbook
actually doesn't change.
You've got to get found whenthey believe they want to
inquire about the product orservice.
You've got to find a way to getthem into your world, generate
(11:10):
a lead, and then you've got tofigure out how you're going to
convert them and then, obviously, maximize lifetime value.
That hasn't changed in any ofthe businesses I've owned and
not one of the businesses we'vehelped.
So we stay around the buyer'sjourney and if we can understand
it, we believe it can help.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Now, if we don't understand your journey, then
we're out work with an expertand as you continue in your
business, you might find that ithas pivoted a little bit.
(11:45):
Maybe there's a different usecase that you didn't think about
for your business, for yourproduct or service that people
are using it for.
We see that all the time withpharmaceutical.
So, it can also apply to otherareas of our businesses and to
other businesses.
You talk about strategy and Iforget the exact quote, but
that's one of my favorite quotesis that it's always the same
things.
Right, you have to solve aproblem, you have to show people
(12:06):
how you solve the problem, youhave to understand who they are
and make them the hero.
What about the other side?
So the value of SEO, the wayswe use SEO, the way you use
email marketing, because I thinkthat kind of got frustrating,
but it's really really importantagain.
But we have to do all theseother precautions.
So what about the way wenavigate through these tactics
(12:27):
and ecosystems?
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Yeah, it's a great question.
So SEO is where we started.
That was actually the mainservice we started selling back
in the day and actually that wasone of the ways I started my
journey, which, when I was inthe real estate lending, I
started my own blog and did thevideos as well as the blog, and
I was getting found all over theplace.
So search engine optimization,or SEO as it's called, is a
top-of-the-funnel tactic, whichmeans SEO is best for discovery,
(12:53):
for what I call long.
Here's the way I say it in mytraining SEO is best to show up
for the problem that precedesthe purchase.
What do I mean by that?
The problem that someone hasbefore they're ready to make a
purchase is always going to bethe best time for SEO to work,
(13:16):
because I, as a buyer, and yourbuyers and if you're watching
this, if you think about yourcustomers they're going to go on
a journey of discovery to solvea question in their mind as
they think about the product orservice they might need to
address that problem.
And, annika, in my seminars andmy training, I always use a
very simple example If I have aheadache today, there are a lot
(13:39):
of things I can do to cure aheadache.
A headache could be caused by anumber of things, from the most
severe it could be a migraine,all the way down to I slept on
my pillow the wrong way and I'vegot a little bit of a tweak in
my neck right.
There are a lot of reasons Imight have a headache and, let's
be clear, it could be somethingway worse.
But the journey, if that's arecurring headache and I've gone
(14:02):
to my doctor and I've tried,like for me.
I'm a guy who loves fitness andI try to keep my body as
healthy as possible.
But the reality is, if I get aheadache in my body, my first
run to is am I hydrated?
My second run is am I stressed?
My third thought is did I sleepwrong on my neck?
Fourth one is did I tweak it atthe gym this morning?
So I go down a series ofthought processes about
(14:25):
identifying how I got theproblem, and then let's say,
though, that headache staysaround for four days.
Oh, now I've got an entirelydifferent set of questions.
Why has my headache beenbothering?
Why do I have a recurringheadache three days in a row?
Well, guess what?
I'm not the person to answerthat question, but the doctor or
whoever the professional is whospeaks to that scenario?
(14:46):
Now I've just Googled a longtail question which, by the way,
if you look at Google reportsgoing back from 2004, all the
way to today, going back to whenGoogle first started, most
people typed in two words, threewords, four words maximum.
Today, something like 70% ofsearches have more than four
words in them.
Something like 70% of searcheshave more than four words in
them.
So you're an injury attorneyand you want to rank for an
injury attorney, or you're achiropractor and you want to
(15:08):
work for a chiropractor, youwant to rank for a chiropractor
at your city.
You want to rank for your nameand your specialty.
But the fact is, the best wayto show up in SEO is to show up
for the questions that yourprospects ask on the pathway to
your product or service.
And so that's the short story,or short part there.
Seo is great, still great,tougher today than ever,
(15:30):
especially now in a world of SGE, which is search generative
experience, where Google is nowtesting AI and giving the search
.
So SEO is changing and I reallydon't know where it's going to
go.
But I have a hypothesis thatsearch engine optimization will
become less effective, more andmore, because Google's job if we
(15:50):
understand Google's businessmodel is that I think 78 or 9%
of its revenue comes from Googleads.
So they're not incentivized forSEO.
That's our thing.
Like they don't care about SEO.
They care about one thing andone thing only and I'm obviously
very opinionated about this andthat is providing the best
search results for every singlesearch query of their customer.
(16:16):
And let's be clear, the peoplewho go to Google, those are
their customers, not ours.
We're trying to get in front ofthem with our thing, but it's
their thing.
So they're going to keep movingthe search engine around until
they make sure that no one'sgoing to leave Google to go find
their answer somewhere else.
So SGE for those listening, ifyou're not familiar, google it
(16:37):
they're now starting to put AIresults in the search engines
and move further the blogs andthe websites down the page.
All you got to do is look atsome traffic analysis to realize
we've been going through thisfor months I'm sorry years,
years, years.
We've been seeing this foryears.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Yeah, and I don't know that that's something that
we talk about much.
So, hearing from the surfacelevel perspective, right, you
obviously are deeply entrenched.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Yeah, probably more than your audience wanted to
hear about.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
No, this is exactly what we need to hear about,
because we need to understand.
Well, we're using SEO.
Maybe we're using even videoSEO.
Why is it not working aseffectively now?
So what?
Are some ways to combat this orto make it a winner for us.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
I'm glad you asked that question.
So YouTube is the secondlargest search engine in the
world, owned by Google, right?
So we are very heavily leaninginto what we call expert-related
content.
So, in other words, writtencontent is no longer enough,
right?
We do not know what the trueimpact to SEO or search engine
optimization is.
When we talk about gettingfound at the top of the funnel,
(17:42):
we don't really know for surewhat it's going to look like,
because it's just an experiment.
Right now.
It's the wild wild west.
Google's trying to catch up toOpenAI, who is ChatGPT.
Plot is involved, which isowned by Anthropic.
We don't know where it's goingto go, but what we do agree on
and be naive to think otherwiseis that search will change.
But the key is YouTube is asearch engine that most people
(18:03):
don't think of as a searchengine, and that is a great
opportunity.
So the thing that I wouldrecommend today, that I started
back in 2007, was to answerfrequently asked questions via
video and then, through thepower of that one communication,
you now have the media and theasset that can now live in
(18:24):
multiple places, and now we canuse the power of AI, because,
think about it, if you have aset of frequently asked
questions in your industry, andeverybody does, and you're
willing to answer thosequestions on camera, and I know
that that scares most people.
But let me tell you, jumpingout of an airplane without a
parachute is way worse, trust me.
Just think about it.
(18:44):
You're saying the same thing toa camera that you would have
said to your prospect via phoneor on a Zoom call or in an email
.
But if you can get into theidea to create all of this
content number one it can liveon YouTube and be discovered.
Number one.
Number two you can nowrepurpose and put that content
in other places, ie your socialmedia channels, ie use them in
(19:06):
email, ie on your blog.
And of course now, ai is ourbest friend now, because AI can
help us take the very rawtranscript of that and turn it
into a lot of the media assetsthat we can use cross-channel.
So while we are saying SEO couldbe changing, there's so many
other opportunities to look atto recapture and regain our
traffic.
And of course, anika we didn'ttalk about it yet, but we're big
(19:29):
in paid advertising.
We've always been a believerthat we don't want to play the
rollercoaster game with Google.
We will play it.
But paid advertising is anotheraspect where you can control
distribution, you can controlawareness and you can control
the messaging such that itreaches the right people.
And you've got to understandthat AI is powering meta, it's
(19:49):
powering Google, it's poweringalmost all these ad platforms,
so they're getting super smartat finding your people for you.
But you have to have thecontent to get that to work for
you.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Yes, I'm so glad that you said that.
I do have a couple of questionsabout the content side.
And then I do want to get intothe world of paid, because that
also can be a very mysteriousworld if you haven't played in
it.
We talk about YouTube being thenumber two search engine.
We know that TikTok is alsoused as a search engine for the
younger demographics.
(20:21):
It's younger than we are andit's short videos for the most
part on TikTok, although theyare letting you play with a
little bit longer form, butthose could also be used as
YouTube shorts, right, so youcould actually repurpose the
content, so you can have thesame questions answered on
different platforms to test outwhere your audience is and what
(20:42):
kind of response you're getting.
So that's one thing that Iimmediately thought about.
I would love to hear yourperception about the different
social media opportunitiesbeyond Google and YouTube.
And then the other day, you andI were talking about the fact
that when you're working withclients now, one of your
requirements is that you areable to get them a video
recording of them speaking.
(21:03):
Doesn't have to be video thatyou're going to use, right, but
just so that you make sure thatyou're really speaking in their
brand voice when you arecreating content, whether it's
organic content or ad-drivencontent.
So I know those are kind of twobig areas for you to discuss,
but yeah, I love it.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Both questions are great.
Let me start with the latter.
At the end of the day, when abrand, a company, a professional
service provider, a CEO or afounder, generally speaking and
again, we've been doing contentfor clients for a long time we
don't call ourselves a creativeagency.
So I want to draw a distinction.
We're not a PR agency, we'renot a branding agency.
We're not doing creative to dowhat we would traditionally
(21:43):
think of, which is brandawareness or impression-based
advertising, which is the oldschool advertising model.
We live at the lead generation.
We live at the brand awarenessto lead generation, to
conversion level.
So we're playing at a littlebit different level.
So my answer will be based onthat context.
Short form is a good path ofdiscovery on any of the channels
(22:03):
the YouTube channel, theTikToks, the Instagram reels,
facebook reels, it is all thesame.
However, I do believe that thegoal that we try to strive for
is understanding.
Are we creating content in thebrand's voice, in the expert's
(22:26):
voice, from the context and fromthe level of acumen of the
expert that we're writing for orcreating content for?
And for years we've hiredwriters in our agency and I mean
they've got degrees and they'reexperts at writers and we'd
always have, we'd hear thisthing of well, the content's
good, but it doesn't sound likehow I would say it.
Well, the content's goodliterally, but there's some
nuances about how it actuallyworks in practice.
So there's a delicate balancebetween writing content for
search engine optimization andwriting it in the brand voice,
(22:48):
because the brand would write itthe way they say it, but that
won't rank.
They will write it the wayit'll rank, and then that's not
the way they would say it.
So I was like in 2018, I'm likewell, shoot.
Well, we've been usingplatforms like Zoom for quite
some time.
We were using a differentplatform before Zoom and then
Zoom came out.
So I just said what if we justinterview with a client once a
month and ask them the six toeight questions around the blog
(23:09):
topics that we're going to writethat month, get their
perspective, not have them writeit?
And let me tell you this, theyalso hated to do all of the
editing and the back and forthwith our writing team.
So we were like huh, they hatethe editing, but they don't like
exactly how it's said.
It's literally correct, but notthe way they would write it.
But they don't want to write itbecause they're busy
professionals and we get it.
(23:29):
So we had to try to solve thatproblem.
So we were like, okay, we'llinterview them with the six or
eight questions, whatever it maybe, and then have the
transcript go to the writer.
And of course, now, today, it'seven faster because we could
have AI reverse engineer howthey set it, the voice, the tone
, and that's really the goal.
How does that then repurposeinto social?
(23:50):
Because now we're able toobviously cut our editing time,
cut our efficiency and save thema bunch of time.
And they love talking aboutthemselves, they love talking
about their craft, they justwant to do they don't want to do
all the writing.
So we've kind of looked at thatas the best opportunity for us
to create content, number one,number two get their voice and
(24:10):
their face into the contentwithout it being a lot of hoopla
.
You and I are media people.
We are okay in camera.
We've accepted this as ourcraft.
But lawyers don't want to dothis stuff in front of the
camera and doctors don't havetime for this stuff, but they
will sit down and have aconversation with you.
And that became the unlock.
And those aren't the onlyindustries, but the person who
(24:31):
created the thing that you'reselling or marketing.
They will talk about that allday if you ask them to, and then
, if you ask them the rightquestions, they'll talk for
hours, but they never would sitdown and do the video on their
own.
So we just use a digital studio, virtual studio, and it gets
everybody the best of bothworlds, and then we can use that
for organic on the blog, onsocial and in ads.
(24:54):
And the reason we like it inads is because now it's not just
this stale creative that lookedgood came out of.
You know, illustrator is nativeto the platform as the organic,
native content itself, andthat's one of our goals is to
keep the content as native aspossible so that it is engaging.
Because in social as in ads,most people don't know this, but
the number one word we talkabout in our agency is
(25:17):
engagement.
If the content doesn't getengagement, it will never
convert, and that's measured anumber of different ways, but
engagement is the only thingwe're after, so I hope that
helps in some way.
But that's kind of our approach.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Absolutely, and I would love now to talk about the
world of paid advertising.
You have very clear opinionsand thoughts about what works
and what doesn't, Because Ithink when you're learning about
paid ads, a lot of times it'slike okay, you have to narrow
down to your exact persona onthe back end of now.
(25:49):
Meta, not just one of theplatforms, right?
So you go into the ads managerand you say people who like
these kind of magazines, thismusic, who are in this age
demographic and maybe have theseother psychographic tendencies.
And that is the way that I wastaught and of course I'm not in
this business every day ofactually creating and
(26:11):
implementing ad spends andyou've taught me something very
different.
And you've taught me aboutlibrary and how I can look up my
competitors ads, that Iactually have used that in my
classes to show my students whatthey can do to do a really easy
competitive analysis.
But I really want you to dispelsome myths for us here and talk
about how we can really make animpact with our ads.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
So, for context everyone, we started running as
2012 and I'm a practitioner, notjust an owner investor.
I've never owned a businessthat I didn't operate.
So I don't stay operating asmuch as I mean, but I'll never
just I don't just put money inor I just don't say I'm the
owner, I do the work, like Istill love marketing, I still
love the hands-on, to this day.
So, having said that, just fora little context in about I
(26:59):
don't remember the exact year, Iwant to say it was 2020 or 2021
, maybe 2019.
Speaking of Meta, for example,meta was at the time just called
Facebook and Facebook ownsInstagram.
So when we're talking Facebookor Meta, we're talking Facebook
and Instagram.
Same time they got in troublefor something called Cambridge
Analytica, graham.
Same time they got in troublefor something called Cambridge
Analytica and it was a datascandal allowing data to get to
(27:20):
people that shouldn't be gettingto.
The data it was influencingelections, et cetera.
Some people are familiar.
They were then at that time,kind of forced I think their
hand was forced to remove a lotof the targeting options.
So before this happened, wewould have all sorts of
targeting options targeting byage, by gender, by race and
ethnicity, by income, by likesand interests and behaviors and
(27:42):
a lot of other types of things,and the algorithm, though, since
2018-19, has been matured.
In fact, the things that weused to do to try to get
narrowly focused on a targetmarket is no longer necessary
and, in fact, today will hurtyour campaigns, because their AI
(28:02):
and their algorithm has beenrebuilt.
And what we say, annika, andwhat you're referring to here is
your two jobs as an advertiserare to choose the right campaign
objective, meaning, what do youwant the goal of this campaign
to be.
Is it to get a lead?
Is it to get a sale?
You pick the right campaignobjective and the targeting.
(28:26):
We now leave it to Facebook.
We leave it to Meta.
Their algorithm knows moreabout its 2.9 or 3.3 billion
users I don't know how I can'tkeep up, but the algorithm knows
their auction and algorithmknows more about the user
behavior than we do, so wheneverwe put our own thoughts over
the top.
(28:46):
I only want to talk to people35 to 44, because that's who
mostly buys.
That might be true, but youdon't know that.
That's where they live, the way.
Someone taught me about it andgot me to open my eyes to it,
and they said you know someonewho advertises to someone who
likes Ford trucks.
You don't realize that a thirdof the audience likes Ford
trucks, a third of the audienceis a neutral and a third of the
(29:08):
audience actually hates Fordtrucks.
And yet you're saying toFacebook only target people who
are interested in Ford trucks.
The problem is, you're onlyreaching a third of the audience
.
So the job then.
Number three so we let Facebooktake the wheel.
That's my favorite phrase.
I let Facebook take the wheel.
We let Meta take the wheel onthe targeting.
So we use open targeting almostacross the board.
(29:29):
We put no targeting in anymore.
We'll put the age range and wekeep that as open as possible.
We'll put the location city,state, country right.
We will put that in.
But after that, facebook takethe wheel.
Our job, though.
Why can we do that?
Why do we do that?
Because that could scare somepeople.
The reason we do that is wefocus, then, all of our
(29:52):
attention on the ad creative andthe messaging.
Our attention on the adcreative and the messaging.
So, whether it's written orvideo or imagery, we spend all
of our time making sure that themessage in the creative, the
video, the audio or the writtenword and the headline does the
targeting and we call it.
(30:12):
I call it.
It's not I didn't make it up,but I believe a copywriter.
I wish I could give credit tothe copywriter who made this up,
but it's called dog whistlecopy.
Dog whistle copy what is thatmeant by?
Well, we all know dogs have ahigher hearing frequency than
humans.
They can hear things we can'thear.
So when your dog goes crazy andyou're sitting there minding
your business and that jokergets up, like mine does, and
(30:34):
runs to the door as if there's athreat, right, it's because he
heard the neighbor across thestreet open their garage and
shut their car door.
And you're like what the heckis wrong with you.
Well, the thing about dogwhistle copy is it simply it
repels the wrong person and itpulls in the right person and it
(30:58):
pulls in the right person.
And in order to do that, you goback to something I said earlier
you must understand at a highlevel the buyer, not just
demographics, but your buyerpsychographics how they think,
how they act, how they speak,how they move, what bothers them
, what frustrates them, whatproblems are they trying to
solve.
You've got to get good at thatand then test all of those
different frustrations andconcerns and problems and
anxieties and troubles that theyhave in their world.
(31:19):
And that's your job is tocreate the items of ads, the
creatives against all of thosemessages, and do that
consistently.
Let the algorithm go find thepeople.
Now I am speaking just aboutmeta.
At the moment, you can't applythis openly to TikTok and to
YouTube, although YouTube isgetting there, and as is Google.
(31:41):
Quite honestly, google is evengetting to the point where they
don't want you to tell them whatkeyword to bid on.
They want you to tell them thecategory of the keyword and let
them go figure it out and thengive us nine or 10 ads to work
with and we'll show the ads tothe right people at the right
time.
So both platforms are sayingspend more time, tell us the job
(32:04):
that you want the ad to do andtell us the type of creatives
and messaging that you want usto test and let our system go do
the work.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Wow.
So people must be moreintentional about the messages
that they're putting out 100%.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Yeah, you got to get crystal clear about again.
Just think of it this way whensomeone is scrolling on their
newsfeed, I'm just going tostick to a social example
Someone's on their phone andFacebook or Meta shows your ad
or renders it in the newsfeed.
The wrong person should skipright by it.
The right person should stopand pay attention.
(32:39):
It doesn't mean they're goingto convert, but that little
subtlety of behavior sends asignal to the algorithm here.
Let me give you an example.
I target small to mid-sizedbusiness owners small to
mid-sized businesses mostly inAmerica, but elsewhere.
If I start an ad that says areyou a small to mid-sized
(33:02):
business owner who has struggledwith digital marketing over the
last few years and are havingtrouble getting an ROI from all
of your efforts, even thoughyou're trying?
Watch this video, see, ifyou're not a small business
owner first part of the sentenceyou should just skip the ad.
And if you aren't strugglingwith digital marketing, I've
(33:25):
just given you another out toskip the ad.
And if you are getting an ROI,I've given you a third reason to
skip the ad.
So I put three little hooks inthat ad that I really want the
condition of all three of thoseto be true.
And then I'll serve up a oneminute or two minute video Again
, not a 30 second reel or 12second reel a one to two minute
(33:48):
video and then we can gaugewhether someone watches all of
that video Now we won't know whothey are, but Facebook does
watches all of that video.
Now, we won't know who they are, but Facebook does, instagram
does and so that behavior thensends a signal to the algorithm
to find more people who wouldrespond to that video in the
same way.
And that's part of mythree-tiered strategy that you
know about, which is part of mysocial media ad simplified
(34:10):
program.
But that's kind of what we'redoing.
So the job is get crystal clear, and if you don't know the
problems, pains, concerns,anxieties, worries, frustrations
of your client, then you'llnever do well.
In the ad creative side, theobjective is easy Either want
someone to buy something orsignal their interest in buying
something, and that's our job.
To me it's never been easier,and I said that to you, and I
(34:32):
know that's frustrating to somepeople who may be struggling
with it, but it's really gottensimpler than running 10 ad sets,
20 campaigns.
We run maximum three campaignsat any given time and we let the
algorithm do the rest of thework, and then we work on
cycling in our creatives, andthat's it.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
There is one thing that you told me that you should
pay attention to, which is whatyou want people to, what you
want the behavior to be from thead right, because I remember
you did tell me something aboutthat where people sometimes
forget.
They say that they wantawareness, but that's really
just making more people see thead and see their page.
It's not compelling them totake any actual action that
(35:15):
makes them become a customer ora potential customer.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
There's some frustrating things and I want
everyone to listen to me clearlywhen I say this both and, by
the way, I'm going to keepGoogle's guilty of this and all
the social platforms are that'sLinkedIn, that's Facebook,
that's Insta, that's text.
It has never performed for usor our clients.
I just can't.
I can't give that advice.
Here's the thing If you openyour ads platform on any of
these platforms, they will giveyou generally eight to 10
(35:39):
different objectives awareness,website traffic, video views,
messages, hauls, engagement,like campaigns, get new fans.
Let me just shorten this for you.
You have only two jobs when yourun an ad.
There's a third job only later,when you've done the first two
right, and that is if you're abusiness that runs e-commerce,
(36:03):
you have no business running anycampaign other than a sales
campaign, and that is in theobjective.
Do not run a campaign objectiveother than sales.
If you're selling an e-commerceproduct, if you're a
professional service businessthat does not have a checkout
experience which means theycan't go from your ad to a
(36:24):
checkout experience then youshould be running a leads
campaign.
There is no other campaignobjective in the platforms that
matter except those two.
Take it to the bank as of rightnow.
And if you think you're goingto run an engagement campaign
and then get them to engage andeventually go buy, you're wrong
(36:45):
because the algorithm isbehavioral based and they will
serve the ad to people who arelikely to hit the like button,
the comment button or the sharebutton, but it doesn't mean
they're going to buy.
It doesn't mean they're going tobecome a lead.
We love video view campaigns,but not for the reason most
people think we use video viewcampaigns.
(37:07):
So if I back up and tell youwhen we do this little video
creation project, we love to runvideo view campaigns to our
targeted audience using themessaging strategy that we
talked about a moment ago, notbecause we want to get those
people to convert, but becausewe want to elevate what Top of
mind awareness in a marketplaceagainst the problem that this
(37:27):
provider or this company cansolve, which can then be
retargeted later.
But even some people want tostart with that because it's
cheap.
We only put 5% of any budget tothis type of campaign, but
people can't take it to the bankand they get irritated because
they only want to spend a littlebit of money.
But no, you've got to do leadsor sales, and so that picking
(37:49):
the wrong objective is wheremost people's campaigns are done
from the start.
They're done from the start andI can tell it a mile away.
I'll give you one quick story.
There's this national company Idon't know where people are
listening, but there's this newthing now called auction
businesses, where they're inlocal markets and they buy
merchandise and it's like alocal eBay, in my opinion.
(38:10):
They have an auction site,products go up for bid and here
in my city it's called NellisAuction.
And there's another companythat reached out to us to help
them and, in any case, she saysDaryl, she's the head of
marketing, and I'm sorry I'm notgoing to call her by name, but
here's the head of marketing forthis company that has five or
six, seven locations, whateverit is.
And she says, yeah, something'swrong with our Facebook
campaigns.
We need your help.
(38:31):
And I said, okay, tell me aboutthe data.
And because we always startwith data, we have a four-tier
process start with the data,analyze it, make a plan and then
take action.
We never start before that.
We don't take action before thedata.
She gave me the data and I said, oh, what's your campaign
objective?
I already knew what it was.
By the way, the data tells meeverything.
I'm not trying to be that smart, but I've been doing it a while
.
So, when you tell me the data bytelling me we spent this much
(38:55):
money and got this many linkclicks.
The minute she told me she wastelling me the metric was link
clicks, it told me she wasrunning a traffic campaign
inside of Meta.
Well, a traffic campaign meansyou ran the ad and told Facebook
to find people who like toclick on buttons and click links
(39:17):
.
That doesn't mean they want tobuy, it just means they like to
click links and Facebook happensto know who those people are.
And it's cheaper, annika.
It's cheaper, it's really cheap.
In fact, you can get clicks for30 cents, 20 cents, 12 cents,
and so you can get a lot ofclicks.
And then you don't get aconversion and you wonder what's
wrong with your campaign.
And it's not your landing pageno-transcript.
(40:03):
Sometimes it's as simple as justthe wrong campaign objective
yeah, that's powerful it'spainful when I see it actually,
yeah, because they're sofrustrated oh, absolutely, but
it's like One switch, though Ialways say.
By the way, one of my companiesis called MindShift and I
always say you're one shift awayfrom the breakthrough you've
(40:25):
been looking for.
And.
I seriously mean it In that kindof scenario her whole, entire
ad efficiency and ad spend.
They may never, ever come backand hire agency because that
might've been the unlock and allthat was she needed, and we're
happy to do it.
If it's one thing and you don'tneed us, great.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
We'll give you the one thing Don't even pay us for
it, right?
Well, and this is that's theperfect segue, because my next
question was going to be aboutthe MindShift name.
That's the name of the podcast.
You're rebranding a little bitof everything, maybe under
MindShift, so we please talkabout the name, because I think
a lot of people associate itwith meditation or, you know,
manifestation name, because Ithink a lot of people associate
(41:05):
it with meditation ormanifestation, those kind of
things.
I want to talk about it in thecontext of business the name of
your podcast, how long you'vebeen podcasting, and then a
little bit about the book,because I know we have so much
we could cover, but I just wantto give a little taste.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
Yeah, I appreciate that.
So the name of the podcast isthe Mindshift Podcast and we
also have the MindshiftiftPodcast and we also have the
MindShift Business Academy andour agency will be changing
names to one of the MindShiftumbrellas as well.
So I got to jump back to 98 fora quick second and there was
something in my personal lifethat happened and I had two boys
at the time and therelationship came to an end and
(41:38):
their mom decided to move toanother state here in the United
States.
It was at the time 1,360something miles away from where
I lived, and so I was dealingwith my own life of
understanding that my kids wouldnot be in my life on a daily
basis anymore, and that was achallenge.
And so it's around 2000 at thistime and it's been a few years,
(41:58):
a couple of years, and ofcourse, you go through the
emotions of it and you do thething that you do.
We all do it, no matter howmuch personal development work
and how much personal growthwork and I've been involved in
personal development by thattime by 10 years.
But when you're emotional,you're emotional and you do a
lot of blaming and you wonderwhat you did wrong and you just
do a lot of introspection.
Well, bottom line was Ideveloped a framework and I had
(42:20):
to come to step one in what Icall the mind shift framework,
which is I had to make peacewith the facts that they were
going to live there and I wasgoing to live somewhere else,
and I couldn't get by thesituation without making peace
with the facts.
Step two was I had to shift theway I thought about being a dad
.
And that's literally I justshift.
(42:40):
How am I going to be a good dadwhen they're living there and
I'm living here?
And you could talk yourselfinto all sorts of tailspins
about what that now new storymeans.
And I just remember saying okay, I can be a good dad if they
live over there.
I am going to have arelationship with them living
over there.
So that's step two in my model,which is make a new decision.
(43:01):
So you've made peace with thefacts, but now what is the new
decision?
I'm going to be a good dad, nomatter where they live, no
matter where I live.
Okay, then what does that mean?
Right, because this is beforeFaceTime and before cell phones
had cameras and this is allbefore that, right?
So what does that mean Well,that means, oh, I've got to go
travel and get them, becausethey're eight and two, that
means I've got to go see themwhen I want to go see them,
(43:22):
which means I also then have topay the bill to go see them and
fly them back and forth, becausethey can't get on a plane by
themselves.
So you go through all of thestories.
So what is that decision?
Okay, so that decision leads tothis decision.
Because of that decision, what'sstep three?
Well, what's the plan to pullthis off?
So, step one make peace.
Step two make a decision.
Step three make a plan.
And then, of course, when youmake a plan that sounds good,
when you draw it out on paper ora chalkboard or a whiteboard,
(43:46):
but then next step four is nowyou've got to make it happen.
And making it happen is usuallya series of commitments that
you must repeat on a daily,weekly, monthly, yearly basis,
long after the feeling you madeit in has passed.
Because, in theory, flying backand forth to Texas, which is
where they grew up, from Vegasis, depending on the time of the
(44:08):
year, that's, a $400 flight toa $700 or $800 flight.
At one time it was a $1,300flight because, of something
going on with fuel and I have togo there and then I have to get
them to come back, so I got topay for their ticket.
So that's how MindShift wasstarted.
I didn't birth the wordMindShift until 2019, when I
(44:28):
started the podcast and Irealized that I wanted to talk
to entrepreneurs and leaders,inspired people that I knew and
I had been associated with, andtalk to them about their
MindShift moments.
And I call it the path frominspiration to realization.
And then, when life knocks youdown, from breakdown to
breakthrough yeah, and it's justthe way I saw my life.
(44:51):
So you can be inspired aboutsomething, but how do you make
it happen?
How do you get to the goal?
And then, oh, but along the wayyou're going to have bumps and
bruises and roadblocks andchallenges and things aren't
going to go right, and failuresand setbacks and all those
things that people call it.
Then what did you do when thathappened and how did you get to
the other side of that?
And so that's what MindShift isabout.
It happens in my business life,it happens at the agency, it
(45:11):
happens in every day, and that'ssort of the birth of MindShift.
We started podcasting July.
We started our first episodeJuly of 2019, july 19, 2019.
I think we, just at the time ofrecording this, we just
released episode 287 yesterdayyesterday, as a matter of fact.
So, and you, I have to say,annika, you have been an
incredible inspiration to sortof the rebirth of my journey as
(45:34):
a podcaster, because it startedto feel a little bit of a.
You've taught me a lot aboutthe things that I haven't done
to really take the show to thenext level, and your dedication
and commitment to podcasting andthe model of media that we're
part of in that group and I, youknow I've been an entrepreneur
over here, but I'm not a mediaguy, so I'm learning to be a
media guy.
(45:54):
You've been extremely helpful,so I definitely want to shout
you out for that, because it'sbeen a pleasure watching you and
listening to you and learningfrom you, and I really
appreciate our collaborations.
Speaker 2 (46:04):
Oh, thank you, Daryl, I do too.
I just I love your expertiseand how knowledgeable you are,
how willing you are to shareyour knowledge, particularly
like today on this podcastepisode where people are
learning secrets that they mightnot read about If they're just
trying to Google how do we doFacebook ads?
(46:24):
Or if they're just goingthrough the meta system or
Google system.
So what's next?
You have this shift.
You have a book that you areworking on.
Is that going to be releasedthis year?
Speaker 3 (46:37):
Yeah, it'll be out this year.
It's funny, the project of thebook has been one of my worst
procrastination projects I'veever.
It's very interesting on thesurface.
You think certain entrepreneurs, you look at certain things
that people have done and I havea demon called procrastination.
That is just a battle.
It's been a battle forever forme.
That being said, I started thebook.
I hired a coach, sat down and Isaid, hey, help me write this
(46:59):
thing, help me do the thing.
I got chapter one done, but Iwas wrestling and I'll tell you
why I stopped.
The book will come out and thebook is for entrepreneurs, and
specifically Annika, it's forentrepreneurs.
There's a statistic in theUnited States that has been
haunting me from the agency sideforever, and that is 91% of
small businesses in Americanever spend more than $1,000 or
(47:20):
invest more than $1,000 a monthin marketing to grow their
business.
81% of small businesses.
According to the studies fromthe people who have way more
money than me to study thisstuff, 81% of all small
businesses in America are oneperson businesses.
And then a number that reallycame to light on my agency side
is that about 95% of all smallbusinesses make less than a
(47:43):
million dollars a year in grossrevenue and most small business
owners 60 something percent ofsmall business owners make only
about $55,000 a year in theirentrepreneurship endeavor and
I'm like you should have keptthe job.
You left the job to go make50,000 and take all the stress
(48:03):
on.
So I have a heart to help andso the book name was going to be
the Lean Growth Method, whichis a philosophy that I've been
teaching and I've used, and it'sa philosophy of seven pillars
that I've used to grow mybusiness over the years, largely
because I was one of the 81% atone time and I know what it's
like to live on a couch, start abusiness with nothing, grow it,
(48:25):
hustle, grind, and also I knowwhat burnout looks like.
I know what it looks like in areal way.
I put on 30 something pounds, Ihad high blood pressure.
I did all that and I was likethis is going to end bad.
Right, it's going to end bad.
So my intention behind the booknow the book title is going to
be changed.
I'm not going to say the nameof the book today because I
(48:46):
haven't trademarked the name,but we did land the domain.
But the theory of the book ishow do smaller sole practitioner
entrepreneurs get a businessmodel built into their business
so that they can reach the sevenfigure mark.
Because I'm concerned with anumber of things.
Number one the longevity ofthat business meaning.
(49:07):
Is that business going to diewith you?
Number two are you leavinganything for those that come
behind you in your name, likegenerationally speaking?
Are you creating anything thatwill live beyond you?
And number three it shouldn'tbe stressful and hard and you
only make 60 grand a year when Iknow you're talented and you
(49:28):
probably left something making abuck 30, right, that is
something that I can fix.
I know I can fix it.
I've watched companies on themarketing side and this is the
book is going to largely beabout marketing because that's
one of the core essences of howI've done things.
But we're also going to,through the Academy address,
team building, superstar systems.
I mean some of the things thatgo outside of that.
But it was a challenging pivotfor me on the book because I was
(49:50):
trying to.
I made a mistake.
I made a mistake and I wastrying to write the book for two
different people and that wasreally what hit me as a marketer
.
I made my damn mistake and Ididn't realize that I was really
trying to write it for twodifferent people.
And the problem was, every timeI sat down to write, I was just
stuck and I'm like this is notcoming out the way it's supposed
to come out, so there'ssomething wrong.
(50:10):
And so bless Tamika Sims forbeing patient with me.
I hired her, she's been with me, she's helped authors write
over hundreds several hundredauthors write books.
And then every time we wereshowing up the meeting I wasn't
moving forward.
I felt bad and I said listen,I'm probably a very bad client
for you right now.
I said but I am stuck and Ineed to step back away from this
project and rethink why I'mstuck.
It's not that I don't know thematerial.
(50:31):
And it turned out, annika, thatI just I realized I was writing
a book for two different peopleand I had to decide who am I
writing this book for?
Because it's not for me.
I already know this stuff.
It's not for me.
And I felt like I got to getclear of who in the world this
book is for.
And we did get clear.
I got clarity on that.
So we're about to restart thatand I do believe it'll be out
before the year is out, for sure.
Speaker 2 (50:52):
Well, you've given us a little taste of who you are,
Daryl, all of the differentthings that you have expertise
in your journey, your podcast,which I encourage everybody to
listen to, and the best way tofind out more is through your
own branded website,DarylEvansnet, where people can
kind of poke and push buttonsand learn more.
Speaker 3 (51:15):
Yeah, I'll pass.
Go through DarylEvansnet andanywhere on social at Mr Daryl
Evans, on almost every platformand wherever you are listening
to this, watching this.
I am the type of person thatit's never profit first when we
have a conversation.
If you have a question,anything that's piqued your mind
or your interest, I'm happy toanswer it.
If you DM me, I'll be the onewho replies.
If you find my email and emailme, I'll be the one to reply.
(51:38):
Even though I do have a team myassistant does look at my
emails.
I just believe in one-to-oneconnection.
Even though we are a verydigital I'm a digital native.
Now I believe in the power ofrelationships and honoring the
time you spend here watchingthis show through Annika's
platform, and so if you have aquestion, feel free to reach out
on any subject.
I'm happy to be a resource.
Speaker 2 (51:55):
Fantastic.
Well, thank you, daryl Evans.
It's been such a pleasurehaving you on the show and this
is to be continued.
I know we have many more thingsin the works, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (52:06):
Thank you.
Thank you, Annika.
Speaker 2 (52:07):
Absolutely.
Thank you to everybody who iswatching or listening.
Come back, follow and keep intouch with us.
Let us know what kind ofcontent you want to see, what
questions you have, so we canbring back the best innovators
to help you make your journey alittle bit easier.
Speaker 1 (52:23):
To learn more about the Master of Science in Digital
Media Management program, visitus on the web at dmmuscedu.
Welcome to Mediascape insights from digital
changemakers, a speaker seriesand podcast brought to you by
USC Annenberg's Digital MediaManagement Program.
Join us as we unlock thesecrets to success in an
increasingly digital world.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I am so thrilled today to have a long-term
colleague, friend, fellowpodcaster, daryl Evans, on the
show.
Daryl, you are an investor, agrowth partner, a fractional CMO
, a co-founder of a business,you have a podcast, you write
books, multi-talented,multi-hyphenated serial
entrepreneur.
Thank you for being here.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Oh my gosh, writing a book not writing books, but
writing the first one is one ofthe hardest things I've done.
But yeah, thanks Annika forhaving me.
I'm super glad to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Yeah Well, and the first book, I'm sure, will lead
to the next, I have no doubt.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
That's how it kind of works.
That's what they say.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
You are one of my favorite people to talk to about
the digital ecosystem becauseyou've been personally helping
me You've been my tutor, if youwill on how to make the best use
of the behind the scenesintricacies of digital media and
making sure, because you knowthat I teach these classes.
But I also usually work on thestrategy side, creating the
(01:22):
personas, the brand messagingand then hand it off.
And so I was like let me getreally into the back end, the
details, the nitty gritty, sothat I have a better
understanding of that.
And you've been in thisbusiness for quite a while.
That's why you're such anexpert.
So I'd love to hear how did youget into the business?
And I know you've had somepivots and have some ones
continuing along the way.
And I know you've had somepivots and have some ones
(01:43):
continuing along the way.
So that's also a reallyimportant thing to me is to talk
about those pivots and thenwe'll get into some of the nuts
and bolts.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Sure, yeah, absolutely.
So.
The agency started roughly 13years ago, 2011.
So I guess, started withdigital around 2003.
And at that time I was in adifferent industry, owned a
different business, co-owned adifferent business at that time
in the real estate and lendingspace, and so I was actually in
both sides of that industry forquite some time, kind of
(02:10):
overlapping 17 years combined.
But I got started with digitalat that time for one reason and
one reason only, and it was tworeasons.
Number one leverage incommunication, and that would
have been with email marketing.
One leverage in communication,and that would have been with
email marketing.
And then the second kind ofdriver was the sheer need to
(02:30):
have a way to manage my day, tobe quite honest.
So we're just starting to seeemail come out.
At that time, and at that timeI was taking 20 to 30 or 40 new
prospective clients in per month.
I'd have five to 10, maybe 15in process.
Each of those people in processcould be involved with real
(02:56):
estate transaction.
There could be five to sevenstakeholders that are involved
in any way or shape or form.
So I was having thiscommunication challenge because
it was always phone calls backthen to take those listening
audience members who are sonative to text messaging back.
We used to make phone callsback then quite a bit, and so
that was the thing.
So it was first email and thenI realized, oh, we can actually
(03:16):
generate leads, we can buildwebsites.
And it was obviously a littlearchaic back then.
But to fast forward, I learnedso much doing digital in those
early days email, then design awebsite and then getting on
LinkedIn.
I started my first YouTubechannel in 2007 to help
communicate.
So now I'm taking 50-ish phonecalls sometimes in a week and
(03:37):
I'm saying the same things overand over again and again I'm
like, oh, there's got to be abetter way.
Thank God for YouTube, right?
Thank God for YouTube.
And so I didn't become aYouTuber.
I wanted to simply answer allthe frequently asked questions
that people were asking me everysingle week and the answers
were the same.
So every person who asked itwas super important that they
(03:57):
get an answer specific for them,but the general answer was the
same.
So I said, oh, let me nowrecord all the answers to the
frequently asked questions thatthey might have about FHA loans,
conventional loans, va loans,the home process, the escrow
process, the appraisal.
So I just recorded them all,and back then it was a different
(04:17):
process than using oursmartphones or Zoom technology.
Funny side note when we wouldrecord the videos back then we
would transfer them from acamera, camcorder or whatever we
used to use.
It would go through a thingcalled a fire wire that you
plugged into your computer andthen set it up from the camera
to your computer and it wouldliterally take well, I do it
overnight, because it took solong, it was so funny.
(04:39):
And then I started gettingtraffic from YouTube, meaning I
started getting calls fromYouTube and the call started
changing.
So the dynamic was hey, I needyou to help me with my home loan
.
I'm like great, how'd you getreferred to me?
And we're like oh, I found aYouTube channel.
I watched all your YouTubevideos.
When can we get started?
Oh, and then it was like thelight bulb went on this is
(05:01):
2007-ish into eight and themarket, of course, crashed in
eight.
So it gave me thoughts abouthmm, I'm onto something here and
not many of my colleagues seemto be.
And then I realized there was abigger, because I had a lot of
investor clients in the realestate and lending industry and
I realized, oh, these businessowners, business owner clients
too they're like oh, they'restill doing things the old way.
They don't even know about thisstuff.
(05:22):
So me and my former co-founder,we met at the time 2008.
He saw me continuing to grow mymortgage practice through the
pandemic or not the pandemicthrough the recession, through
the crash, and he's like how areyou getting all this business
when everybody else is suffering?
And it wasn't.
I did have a collapse, let mebe clear, really a big collapse.
But I resuscitated my businessso fast through digital and
(05:45):
everybody was like how are youdoing it?
And I'm like I don't have timeto teach you, I'm trying to make
a living.
And anyway, one thing led toanother and we were like, oh,
this is actually a new thing andit's not going away, it's only
going to get bigger.
And I'm like I think I want tobe a part of that.
So that's how the agency gotstarted.
That's how we got to where weare 13 years later hundreds and
hundreds, if not, betweenteaching, coaching and doing the
(06:06):
done for you work.
You know probably over athousand companies now and you
know hundreds of millions ofdollars in revenue for clients.
So it's been an interestingjourney.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
That is a very interesting journey and it's
funny how life creates thesetippets for us.
100% creates these pivots forus.
You started one industry.
You were looking for a solutionfor yourself and, like most
great providers, the solutionthat you found for yourself that
worked so well you were thenable to pivot and create
solutions for others, and thatinvolved a lot of local SEO,
(06:37):
local advertising.
At first, what did thelandscape look like compared to
now?
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Yeah, at that time, I mean it was in our company name
.
Our agency name at the startwas Yoko Local, yoko Local
Internet Marketing and we were,we were very tied to the local
community because we weremortgage and real estate.
I come out of the mortgage andreal estate practice and even
though I did have a license inmultiple states, I focused on it
was mostly in my backyard, andso we did.
We jumped right in to helpbusiness owners because at that
(07:03):
time we're in the middle of arecession right, we're in the
recession of the 2008, 2009, 10era and we're like, hey, stop
advertising in the doggone phonebook.
They're charging you five grand.
Are you serious right now?
So it was local SEO, building onthe website, it was organic SEO
, and Google ads came into playpretty quickly and then, of
(07:24):
course, it migrated and morphedinto 2013.
We're now doing email, we'renow doing social media, where, I
mean, we really quickly pickedup, and then the evolution of
that became a problem, becausenow we've got all these
different customers and allthese different industries,
mostly local at that time,although we did start to pick up
some bigger international ornational accounts, if you will.
But now we started managingeverybody's technology and it
(07:45):
was like, ooh, this person hasWordPress website and they have
constant contact, and they havethey.
Just everybody had differentstuff and that became a problem
to scale.
So I started looking at thesolution, a solution like oh,
this is going to be a problem ifwe always have to hire a
specialist to work on theirthing.
So we started looking atHubSpot at that time and a
(08:07):
couple of years later, wedecided to go all in and become
a partner with HubSpot, aftertesting a number of other
platforms.
But so we've been a HubSpotpartner since 2000, late 2015.
And not every one of our clientshas to be on HubSpot.
That's not a requisite, but itis important to understanding
the complete solution ofefficiency data reporting.
This was early days beforeZapier really took off, so we
(08:32):
didn't have good APIs back then,so it was just tough to keep
the data collected and in thesame place and synchronized.
And then the other big problemthat we had to solve with
HubSpot that helped us was wewere an agency and we kind of
owned their accounts, so we werelike we need to give them their
own stuff, yes, so that ifthere is a breakup, they don't
(08:54):
lose anything Like transferringthem.
Their data was a problem, soanyway.
So that was kind of the journeythere, and we've, of course,
now moved into all sorts ofindustries because we operate
with a framework.
Not so much we don't operate ina niche, we operate against a
framework, and it's heavilyabout the buyer's journey, not
the tactic.
So we're a strategy companythat executes tactics, but it's
(09:17):
all about understanding ourclient's customer journey, and
once we understand the customerjourney, we can put our playbook
against it.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
I love the nuance of that, because we're always told,
as business owners, you mustfind your niche, you have to
find your ideal customer persona.
And you're saying it doesn'thave to be a niche, it can just
be the commonality of thejourney.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
I really believe that when we're talking about
digital marketing now I'm notsaying niching down isn't
helpful for some, but it doesn'tscale If you really look at it.
You can grow your business andyou can get to multiple millions
of dollars if you stay in onespecific niche, but it isn't
going to actually scale to.
The highest level is thathumans do similar things along
(10:05):
their path to solve a problemwith a product or service, no
matter what the problem is, whatthe product or service is.
But if we can understand that,oh, if I get in a car accident
today and I might have a caseand I'm looking for a personal
injury attorney, there arecertain things I'm going to do
and behave in a certain kind ofway, oh, but oh, if I'm wearing
glasses and I do, but I'mplaying golf and my glasses are
(10:28):
coming off, or I'm playingbasketball and someone breaks my
glasses, then I might decide Iwant LASIK eye surgery so I
don't have to wear the glasses.
Well, I'm going to go on acertain journey to figure that
out.
But if I end up in a restaurant, if I'm in a state or a city or
a country I've never been inand I'm trying to find the local
restaurants that are notcorporate-y but they're in the
community.
I'm going to go on a.
(10:48):
So we just try to focus on thebuyer's journey.
And once we understand thatbuyer's journey, the tactics all
work the same.
They just change.
The cadence might change, thestructure might change, but the
platform the playbook, as I liketo call it, the playbook
actually doesn't change.
You've got to get found whenthey believe they want to
inquire about the product orservice.
You've got to find a way to getthem into your world, generate
(11:10):
a lead, and then you've got tofigure out how you're going to
convert them and then, obviously, maximize lifetime value.
That hasn't changed in any ofthe businesses I've owned and
not one of the businesses we'vehelped.
So we stay around the buyer'sjourney and if we can understand
it, we believe it can help.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Now, if we don't understand your journey, then
we're out work with an expertand as you continue in your
business, you might find that ithas pivoted a little bit.
(11:45):
Maybe there's a different usecase that you didn't think about
for your business, for yourproduct or service that people
are using it for.
We see that all the time withpharmaceutical.
So, it can also apply to otherareas of our businesses and to
other businesses.
You talk about strategy and Iforget the exact quote, but
that's one of my favorite quotesis that it's always the same
things.
Right, you have to solve aproblem, you have to show people
(12:06):
how you solve the problem, youhave to understand who they are
and make them the hero.
What about the other side?
So the value of SEO, the wayswe use SEO, the way you use
email marketing, because I thinkthat kind of got frustrating,
but it's really really importantagain.
But we have to do all theseother precautions.
So what about the way wenavigate through these tactics
(12:27):
and ecosystems?
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Yeah, it's a great question.
So SEO is where we started.
That was actually the mainservice we started selling back
in the day and actually that wasone of the ways I started my
journey, which, when I was inthe real estate lending, I
started my own blog and did thevideos as well as the blog, and
I was getting found all over theplace.
So search engine optimization,or SEO as it's called, is a
top-of-the-funnel tactic, whichmeans SEO is best for discovery,
(12:53):
for what I call long.
Here's the way I say it in mytraining SEO is best to show up
for the problem that precedesthe purchase.
What do I mean by that?
The problem that someone hasbefore they're ready to make a
purchase is always going to bethe best time for SEO to work,
(13:16):
because I, as a buyer, and yourbuyers and if you're watching
this, if you think about yourcustomers they're going to go on
a journey of discovery to solvea question in their mind as
they think about the product orservice they might need to
address that problem.
And, annika, in my seminars andmy training, I always use a
very simple example If I have aheadache today, there are a lot
(13:39):
of things I can do to cure aheadache.
A headache could be caused by anumber of things, from the most
severe it could be a migraine,all the way down to I slept on
my pillow the wrong way and I'vegot a little bit of a tweak in
my neck right.
There are a lot of reasons Imight have a headache and, let's
be clear, it could be somethingway worse.
But the journey, if that's arecurring headache and I've gone
(14:02):
to my doctor and I've tried,like for me.
I'm a guy who loves fitness andI try to keep my body as
healthy as possible.
But the reality is, if I get aheadache in my body, my first
run to is am I hydrated?
My second run is am I stressed?
My third thought is did I sleepwrong on my neck?
Fourth one is did I tweak it atthe gym this morning?
So I go down a series ofthought processes about
(14:25):
identifying how I got theproblem, and then let's say,
though, that headache staysaround for four days.
Oh, now I've got an entirelydifferent set of questions.
Why has my headache beenbothering?
Why do I have a recurringheadache three days in a row?
Well, guess what?
I'm not the person to answerthat question, but the doctor or
whoever the professional is whospeaks to that scenario?
(14:46):
Now I've just Googled a longtail question which, by the way,
if you look at Google reportsgoing back from 2004, all the
way to today, going back to whenGoogle first started, most
people typed in two words, threewords, four words maximum.
Today, something like 70% ofsearches have more than four
words in them.
Something like 70% of searcheshave more than four words in
them.
So you're an injury attorneyand you want to rank for an
injury attorney, or you're achiropractor and you want to
(15:08):
work for a chiropractor, youwant to rank for a chiropractor
at your city.
You want to rank for your nameand your specialty.
But the fact is, the best wayto show up in SEO is to show up
for the questions that yourprospects ask on the pathway to
your product or service.
And so that's the short story,or short part there.
Seo is great, still great,tougher today than ever,
(15:30):
especially now in a world of SGE, which is search generative
experience, where Google is nowtesting AI and giving the search
.
So SEO is changing and I reallydon't know where it's going to
go.
But I have a hypothesis thatsearch engine optimization will
become less effective, more andmore, because Google's job if we
(15:50):
understand Google's businessmodel is that I think 78 or 9%
of its revenue comes from Googleads.
So they're not incentivized forSEO.
That's our thing.
Like they don't care about SEO.
They care about one thing andone thing only and I'm obviously
very opinionated about this andthat is providing the best
search results for every singlesearch query of their customer.
(16:16):
And let's be clear, the peoplewho go to Google, those are
their customers, not ours.
We're trying to get in front ofthem with our thing, but it's
their thing.
So they're going to keep movingthe search engine around until
they make sure that no one'sgoing to leave Google to go find
their answer somewhere else.
So SGE for those listening, ifyou're not familiar, google it
(16:37):
they're now starting to put AIresults in the search engines
and move further the blogs andthe websites down the page.
All you got to do is look atsome traffic analysis to realize
we've been going through thisfor months I'm sorry years,
years, years.
We've been seeing this foryears.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Yeah, and I don't know that that's something that
we talk about much.
So, hearing from the surfacelevel perspective, right, you
obviously are deeply entrenched.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Yeah, probably more than your audience wanted to
hear about.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
No, this is exactly what we need to hear about,
because we need to understand.
Well, we're using SEO.
Maybe we're using even videoSEO.
Why is it not working aseffectively now?
So what?
Are some ways to combat this orto make it a winner for us.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
I'm glad you asked that question.
So YouTube is the secondlargest search engine in the
world, owned by Google, right?
So we are very heavily leaninginto what we call expert-related
content.
So, in other words, writtencontent is no longer enough,
right?
We do not know what the trueimpact to SEO or search engine
optimization is.
When we talk about gettingfound at the top of the funnel,
(17:42):
we don't really know for surewhat it's going to look like,
because it's just an experiment.
Right now.
It's the wild wild west.
Google's trying to catch up toOpenAI, who is ChatGPT.
Plot is involved, which isowned by Anthropic.
We don't know where it's goingto go, but what we do agree on
and be naive to think otherwiseis that search will change.
But the key is YouTube is asearch engine that most people
(18:03):
don't think of as a searchengine, and that is a great
opportunity.
So the thing that I wouldrecommend today, that I started
back in 2007, was to answerfrequently asked questions via
video and then, through thepower of that one communication,
you now have the media and theasset that can now live in
(18:24):
multiple places, and now we canuse the power of AI, because,
think about it, if you have aset of frequently asked
questions in your industry, andeverybody does, and you're
willing to answer thosequestions on camera, and I know
that that scares most people.
But let me tell you, jumpingout of an airplane without a
parachute is way worse, trust me.
Just think about it.
(18:44):
You're saying the same thing toa camera that you would have
said to your prospect via phoneor on a Zoom call or in an email
.
But if you can get into theidea to create all of this
content number one it can liveon YouTube and be discovered.
Number one.
Number two you can nowrepurpose and put that content
in other places, ie your socialmedia channels, ie use them in
(19:06):
email, ie on your blog.
And of course now, ai is ourbest friend now, because AI can
help us take the very rawtranscript of that and turn it
into a lot of the media assetsthat we can use cross-channel.
So while we are saying SEO couldbe changing, there's so many
other opportunities to look atto recapture and regain our
traffic.
And of course, anika we didn'ttalk about it yet, but we're big
(19:29):
in paid advertising.
We've always been a believerthat we don't want to play the
rollercoaster game with Google.
We will play it.
But paid advertising is anotheraspect where you can control
distribution, you can controlawareness and you can control
the messaging such that itreaches the right people.
And you've got to understandthat AI is powering meta, it's
(19:49):
powering Google, it's poweringalmost all these ad platforms,
so they're getting super smartat finding your people for you.
But you have to have thecontent to get that to work for
you.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Yes, I'm so glad that you said that.
I do have a couple of questionsabout the content side.
And then I do want to get intothe world of paid, because that
also can be a very mysteriousworld if you haven't played in
it.
We talk about YouTube being thenumber two search engine.
We know that TikTok is alsoused as a search engine for the
younger demographics.
(20:21):
It's younger than we are andit's short videos for the most
part on TikTok, although theyare letting you play with a
little bit longer form, butthose could also be used as
YouTube shorts, right, so youcould actually repurpose the
content, so you can have thesame questions answered on
different platforms to test outwhere your audience is and what
(20:42):
kind of response you're getting.
So that's one thing that Iimmediately thought about.
I would love to hear yourperception about the different
social media opportunitiesbeyond Google and YouTube.
And then the other day, you andI were talking about the fact
that when you're working withclients now, one of your
requirements is that you areable to get them a video
recording of them speaking.
(21:03):
Doesn't have to be video thatyou're going to use, right, but
just so that you make sure thatyou're really speaking in their
brand voice when you arecreating content, whether it's
organic content or ad-drivencontent.
So I know those are kind of twobig areas for you to discuss,
but yeah, I love it.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Both questions are great.
Let me start with the latter.
At the end of the day, when abrand, a company, a professional
service provider, a CEO or afounder, generally speaking and
again, we've been doing contentfor clients for a long time we
don't call ourselves a creativeagency.
So I want to draw a distinction.
We're not a PR agency, we'renot a branding agency.
We're not doing creative to dowhat we would traditionally
(21:43):
think of, which is brandawareness or impression-based
advertising, which is the oldschool advertising model.
We live at the lead generation.
We live at the brand awarenessto lead generation, to
conversion level.
So we're playing at a littlebit different level.
So my answer will be based onthat context.
Short form is a good path ofdiscovery on any of the channels
(22:03):
the YouTube channel, theTikToks, the Instagram reels,
facebook reels, it is all thesame.
However, I do believe that thegoal that we try to strive for
is understanding.
Are we creating content in thebrand's voice, in the expert's
(22:26):
voice, from the context and fromthe level of acumen of the
expert that we're writing for orcreating content for?
And for years we've hiredwriters in our agency and I mean
they've got degrees and they'reexperts at writers and we'd
always have, we'd hear thisthing of well, the content's
good, but it doesn't sound likehow I would say it.
Well, the content's goodliterally, but there's some
nuances about how it actuallyworks in practice.
So there's a delicate balancebetween writing content for
search engine optimization andwriting it in the brand voice,
(22:48):
because the brand would write itthe way they say it, but that
won't rank.
They will write it the wayit'll rank, and then that's not
the way they would say it.
So I was like in 2018, I'm likewell, shoot.
Well, we've been usingplatforms like Zoom for quite
some time.
We were using a differentplatform before Zoom and then
Zoom came out.
So I just said what if we justinterview with a client once a
month and ask them the six toeight questions around the blog
(23:09):
topics that we're going to writethat month, get their
perspective, not have them writeit?
And let me tell you this, theyalso hated to do all of the
editing and the back and forthwith our writing team.
So we were like huh, they hatethe editing, but they don't like
exactly how it's said.
It's literally correct, but notthe way they would write it.
But they don't want to write itbecause they're busy
professionals and we get it.
(23:29):
So we had to try to solve thatproblem.
So we were like, okay, we'llinterview them with the six or
eight questions, whatever it maybe, and then have the
transcript go to the writer.
And of course, now, today, it'seven faster because we could
have AI reverse engineer howthey set it, the voice, the tone
, and that's really the goal.
How does that then repurposeinto social?
(23:50):
Because now we're able toobviously cut our editing time,
cut our efficiency and save thema bunch of time.
And they love talking aboutthemselves, they love talking
about their craft, they justwant to do they don't want to do
all the writing.
So we've kind of looked at thatas the best opportunity for us
to create content, number one,number two get their voice and
(24:10):
their face into the contentwithout it being a lot of hoopla
.
You and I are media people.
We are okay in camera.
We've accepted this as ourcraft.
But lawyers don't want to dothis stuff in front of the
camera and doctors don't havetime for this stuff, but they
will sit down and have aconversation with you.
And that became the unlock.
And those aren't the onlyindustries, but the person who
(24:31):
created the thing that you'reselling or marketing.
They will talk about that allday if you ask them to, and then
, if you ask them the rightquestions, they'll talk for
hours, but they never would sitdown and do the video on their
own.
So we just use a digital studio, virtual studio, and it gets
everybody the best of bothworlds, and then we can use that
for organic on the blog, onsocial and in ads.
(24:54):
And the reason we like it inads is because now it's not just
this stale creative that lookedgood came out of.
You know, illustrator is nativeto the platform as the organic,
native content itself, andthat's one of our goals is to
keep the content as native aspossible so that it is engaging.
Because in social as in ads,most people don't know this, but
the number one word we talkabout in our agency is
(25:17):
engagement.
If the content doesn't getengagement, it will never
convert, and that's measured anumber of different ways, but
engagement is the only thingwe're after, so I hope that
helps in some way.
But that's kind of our approach.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Absolutely, and I would love now to talk about the
world of paid advertising.
You have very clear opinionsand thoughts about what works
and what doesn't, Because Ithink when you're learning about
paid ads, a lot of times it'slike okay, you have to narrow
down to your exact persona onthe back end of now.
(25:49):
Meta, not just one of theplatforms, right?
So you go into the ads managerand you say people who like
these kind of magazines, thismusic, who are in this age
demographic and maybe have theseother psychographic tendencies.
And that is the way that I wastaught and of course I'm not in
this business every day ofactually creating and
(26:11):
implementing ad spends andyou've taught me something very
different.
And you've taught me aboutlibrary and how I can look up my
competitors ads, that Iactually have used that in my
classes to show my students whatthey can do to do a really easy
competitive analysis.
But I really want you to dispelsome myths for us here and talk
about how we can really make animpact with our ads.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
So, for context everyone, we started running as
2012 and I'm a practitioner, notjust an owner investor.
I've never owned a businessthat I didn't operate.
So I don't stay operating asmuch as I mean, but I'll never
just I don't just put money inor I just don't say I'm the
owner, I do the work, like Istill love marketing, I still
love the hands-on, to this day.
So, having said that, just fora little context in about I
(26:59):
don't remember the exact year, Iwant to say it was 2020 or 2021
, maybe 2019.
Speaking of Meta, for example,meta was at the time just called
Facebook and Facebook ownsInstagram.
So when we're talking Facebookor Meta, we're talking Facebook
and Instagram.
Same time they got in troublefor something called Cambridge
Analytica, graham.
Same time they got in troublefor something called Cambridge
Analytica and it was a datascandal allowing data to get to
(27:20):
people that shouldn't be gettingto.
The data it was influencingelections, et cetera.
Some people are familiar.
They were then at that time,kind of forced I think their
hand was forced to remove a lotof the targeting options.
So before this happened, wewould have all sorts of
targeting options targeting byage, by gender, by race and
ethnicity, by income, by likesand interests and behaviors and
(27:42):
a lot of other types of things,and the algorithm, though, since
2018-19, has been matured.
In fact, the things that weused to do to try to get
narrowly focused on a targetmarket is no longer necessary
and, in fact, today will hurtyour campaigns, because their AI
(28:02):
and their algorithm has beenrebuilt.
And what we say, annika, andwhat you're referring to here is
your two jobs as an advertiserare to choose the right campaign
objective, meaning, what do youwant the goal of this campaign
to be.
Is it to get a lead?
Is it to get a sale?
You pick the right campaignobjective and the targeting.
(28:26):
We now leave it to Facebook.
We leave it to Meta.
Their algorithm knows moreabout its 2.9 or 3.3 billion
users I don't know how I can'tkeep up, but the algorithm knows
their auction and algorithmknows more about the user
behavior than we do, so wheneverwe put our own thoughts over
the top.
(28:46):
I only want to talk to people35 to 44, because that's who
mostly buys.
That might be true, but youdon't know that.
That's where they live, the way.
Someone taught me about it andgot me to open my eyes to it,
and they said you know someonewho advertises to someone who
likes Ford trucks.
You don't realize that a thirdof the audience likes Ford
trucks, a third of the audienceis a neutral and a third of the
(29:08):
audience actually hates Fordtrucks.
And yet you're saying toFacebook only target people who
are interested in Ford trucks.
The problem is, you're onlyreaching a third of the audience
.
So the job then.
Number three so we let Facebooktake the wheel.
That's my favorite phrase.
I let Facebook take the wheel.
We let Meta take the wheel onthe targeting.
So we use open targeting almostacross the board.
(29:29):
We put no targeting in anymore.
We'll put the age range and wekeep that as open as possible.
We'll put the location city,state, country right.
We will put that in.
But after that, facebook takethe wheel.
Our job, though.
Why can we do that?
Why do we do that?
Because that could scare somepeople.
The reason we do that is wefocus, then, all of our
(29:52):
attention on the ad creative andthe messaging.
Our attention on the adcreative and the messaging.
So, whether it's written orvideo or imagery, we spend all
of our time making sure that themessage in the creative, the
video, the audio or the writtenword and the headline does the
targeting and we call it.
(30:12):
I call it.
It's not I didn't make it up,but I believe a copywriter.
I wish I could give credit tothe copywriter who made this up,
but it's called dog whistlecopy.
Dog whistle copy what is thatmeant by?
Well, we all know dogs have ahigher hearing frequency than
humans.
They can hear things we can'thear.
So when your dog goes crazy andyou're sitting there minding
your business and that jokergets up, like mine does, and
(30:34):
runs to the door as if there's athreat, right, it's because he
heard the neighbor across thestreet open their garage and
shut their car door.
And you're like what the heckis wrong with you.
Well, the thing about dogwhistle copy is it simply it
repels the wrong person and itpulls in the right person and it
(30:58):
pulls in the right person.
And in order to do that, you goback to something I said earlier
you must understand at a highlevel the buyer, not just
demographics, but your buyerpsychographics how they think,
how they act, how they speak,how they move, what bothers them
, what frustrates them, whatproblems are they trying to
solve.
You've got to get good at thatand then test all of those
different frustrations andconcerns and problems and
anxieties and troubles that theyhave in their world.
(31:19):
And that's your job is tocreate the items of ads, the
creatives against all of thosemessages, and do that
consistently.
Let the algorithm go find thepeople.
Now I am speaking just aboutmeta.
At the moment, you can't applythis openly to TikTok and to
YouTube, although YouTube isgetting there, and as is Google.
(31:41):
Quite honestly, google is evengetting to the point where they
don't want you to tell them whatkeyword to bid on.
They want you to tell them thecategory of the keyword and let
them go figure it out and thengive us nine or 10 ads to work
with and we'll show the ads tothe right people at the right
time.
So both platforms are sayingspend more time, tell us the job
(32:04):
that you want the ad to do andtell us the type of creatives
and messaging that you want usto test and let our system go do
the work.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Wow.
So people must be moreintentional about the messages
that they're putting out 100%.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Yeah, you got to get crystal clear about again.
Just think of it this way whensomeone is scrolling on their
newsfeed, I'm just going tostick to a social example
Someone's on their phone andFacebook or Meta shows your ad
or renders it in the newsfeed.
The wrong person should skipright by it.
The right person should stopand pay attention.
(32:39):
It doesn't mean they're goingto convert, but that little
subtlety of behavior sends asignal to the algorithm here.
Let me give you an example.
I target small to mid-sizedbusiness owners small to
mid-sized businesses mostly inAmerica, but elsewhere.
If I start an ad that says areyou a small to mid-sized
(33:02):
business owner who has struggledwith digital marketing over the
last few years and are havingtrouble getting an ROI from all
of your efforts, even thoughyou're trying?
Watch this video, see, ifyou're not a small business
owner first part of the sentenceyou should just skip the ad.
And if you aren't strugglingwith digital marketing, I've
(33:25):
just given you another out toskip the ad.
And if you are getting an ROI,I've given you a third reason to
skip the ad.
So I put three little hooks inthat ad that I really want the
condition of all three of thoseto be true.
And then I'll serve up a oneminute or two minute video Again
, not a 30 second reel or 12second reel a one to two minute
(33:48):
video and then we can gaugewhether someone watches all of
that video Now we won't know whothey are, but Facebook does
watches all of that video.
Now, we won't know who they are, but Facebook does, instagram
does and so that behavior thensends a signal to the algorithm
to find more people who wouldrespond to that video in the
same way.
And that's part of mythree-tiered strategy that you
know about, which is part of mysocial media ad simplified
(34:10):
program.
But that's kind of what we'redoing.
So the job is get crystal clear, and if you don't know the
problems, pains, concerns,anxieties, worries, frustrations
of your client, then you'llnever do well.
In the ad creative side, theobjective is easy Either want
someone to buy something orsignal their interest in buying
something, and that's our job.
To me it's never been easier,and I said that to you, and I
(34:32):
know that's frustrating to somepeople who may be struggling
with it, but it's really gottensimpler than running 10 ad sets,
20 campaigns.
We run maximum three campaignsat any given time and we let the
algorithm do the rest of thework, and then we work on
cycling in our creatives, andthat's it.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
There is one thing that you told me that you should
pay attention to, which is whatyou want people to, what you
want the behavior to be from thead right, because I remember
you did tell me something aboutthat where people sometimes
forget.
They say that they wantawareness, but that's really
just making more people see thead and see their page.
It's not compelling them totake any actual action that
(35:15):
makes them become a customer ora potential customer.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
There's some frustrating things and I want
everyone to listen to me clearlywhen I say this both and, by
the way, I'm going to keepGoogle's guilty of this and all
the social platforms are that'sLinkedIn, that's Facebook,
that's Insta, that's text.
It has never performed for usor our clients.
I just can't.
I can't give that advice.
Here's the thing If you openyour ads platform on any of
these platforms, they will giveyou generally eight to 10
(35:39):
different objectives awareness,website traffic, video views,
messages, hauls, engagement,like campaigns, get new fans.
Let me just shorten this for you.
You have only two jobs when yourun an ad.
There's a third job only later,when you've done the first two
right, and that is if you're abusiness that runs e-commerce,
(36:03):
you have no business running anycampaign other than a sales
campaign, and that is in theobjective.
Do not run a campaign objectiveother than sales.
If you're selling an e-commerceproduct, if you're a
professional service businessthat does not have a checkout
experience which means theycan't go from your ad to a
(36:24):
checkout experience then youshould be running a leads
campaign.
There is no other campaignobjective in the platforms that
matter except those two.
Take it to the bank as of rightnow.
And if you think you're goingto run an engagement campaign
and then get them to engage andeventually go buy, you're wrong
(36:45):
because the algorithm isbehavioral based and they will
serve the ad to people who arelikely to hit the like button,
the comment button or the sharebutton, but it doesn't mean
they're going to buy.
It doesn't mean they're going tobecome a lead.
We love video view campaigns,but not for the reason most
people think we use video viewcampaigns.
(37:07):
So if I back up and tell youwhen we do this little video
creation project, we love to runvideo view campaigns to our
targeted audience using themessaging strategy that we
talked about a moment ago, notbecause we want to get those
people to convert, but becausewe want to elevate what Top of
mind awareness in a marketplaceagainst the problem that this
(37:27):
provider or this company cansolve, which can then be
retargeted later.
But even some people want tostart with that because it's
cheap.
We only put 5% of any budget tothis type of campaign, but
people can't take it to the bankand they get irritated because
they only want to spend a littlebit of money.
But no, you've got to do leadsor sales, and so that picking
(37:49):
the wrong objective is wheremost people's campaigns are done
from the start.
They're done from the start andI can tell it a mile away.
I'll give you one quick story.
There's this national company Idon't know where people are
listening, but there's this newthing now called auction
businesses, where they're inlocal markets and they buy
merchandise and it's like alocal eBay, in my opinion.
(38:10):
They have an auction site,products go up for bid and here
in my city it's called NellisAuction.
And there's another companythat reached out to us to help
them and, in any case, she saysDaryl, she's the head of
marketing, and I'm sorry I'm notgoing to call her by name, but
here's the head of marketing forthis company that has five or
six, seven locations, whateverit is.
And she says, yeah, something'swrong with our Facebook
campaigns.
We need your help.
(38:31):
And I said, okay, tell me aboutthe data.
And because we always startwith data, we have a four-tier
process start with the data,analyze it, make a plan and then
take action.
We never start before that.
We don't take action before thedata.
She gave me the data and I said, oh, what's your campaign
objective?
I already knew what it was.
By the way, the data tells meeverything.
I'm not trying to be that smart, but I've been doing it a while
.
So, when you tell me the data bytelling me we spent this much
(38:55):
money and got this many linkclicks.
The minute she told me she wastelling me the metric was link
clicks, it told me she wasrunning a traffic campaign
inside of Meta.
Well, a traffic campaign meansyou ran the ad and told Facebook
to find people who like toclick on buttons and click links
(39:17):
.
That doesn't mean they want tobuy, it just means they like to
click links and Facebook happensto know who those people are.
And it's cheaper, annika.
It's cheaper, it's really cheap.
In fact, you can get clicks for30 cents, 20 cents, 12 cents,
and so you can get a lot ofclicks.
And then you don't get aconversion and you wonder what's
wrong with your campaign.
And it's not your landing pageno-transcript.
(40:03):
Sometimes it's as simple as justthe wrong campaign objective
yeah, that's powerful it'spainful when I see it actually,
yeah, because they're sofrustrated oh, absolutely, but
it's like One switch, though Ialways say.
By the way, one of my companiesis called MindShift and I
always say you're one shift awayfrom the breakthrough you've
(40:25):
been looking for.
And.
I seriously mean it In that kindof scenario her whole, entire
ad efficiency and ad spend.
They may never, ever come backand hire agency because that
might've been the unlock and allthat was she needed, and we're
happy to do it.
If it's one thing and you don'tneed us, great.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
We'll give you the one thing Don't even pay us for
it, right?
Well, and this is that's theperfect segue, because my next
question was going to be aboutthe MindShift name.
That's the name of the podcast.
You're rebranding a little bitof everything, maybe under
MindShift, so we please talkabout the name, because I think
a lot of people associate itwith meditation or, you know,
manifestation name, because Ithink a lot of people associate
(41:05):
it with meditation ormanifestation, those kind of
things.
I want to talk about it in thecontext of business the name of
your podcast, how long you'vebeen podcasting, and then a
little bit about the book,because I know we have so much
we could cover, but I just wantto give a little taste.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
Yeah, I appreciate that.
So the name of the podcast isthe Mindshift Podcast and we
also have the MindshiftiftPodcast and we also have the
MindShift Business Academy andour agency will be changing
names to one of the MindShiftumbrellas as well.
So I got to jump back to 98 fora quick second and there was
something in my personal lifethat happened and I had two boys
at the time and therelationship came to an end and
(41:38):
their mom decided to move toanother state here in the United
States.
It was at the time 1,360something miles away from where
I lived, and so I was dealingwith my own life of
understanding that my kids wouldnot be in my life on a daily
basis anymore, and that was achallenge.
And so it's around 2000 at thistime and it's been a few years,
(41:58):
a couple of years, and ofcourse, you go through the
emotions of it and you do thething that you do.
We all do it, no matter howmuch personal development work
and how much personal growthwork and I've been involved in
personal development by thattime by 10 years.
But when you're emotional,you're emotional and you do a
lot of blaming and you wonderwhat you did wrong and you just
do a lot of introspection.
Well, bottom line was Ideveloped a framework and I had
(42:20):
to come to step one in what Icall the mind shift framework,
which is I had to make peacewith the facts that they were
going to live there and I wasgoing to live somewhere else,
and I couldn't get by thesituation without making peace
with the facts.
Step two was I had to shift theway I thought about being a dad
.
And that's literally I justshift.
(42:40):
How am I going to be a good dadwhen they're living there and
I'm living here?
And you could talk yourselfinto all sorts of tailspins
about what that now new storymeans.
And I just remember saying okay, I can be a good dad if they
live over there.
I am going to have arelationship with them living
over there.
So that's step two in my model,which is make a new decision.
(43:01):
So you've made peace with thefacts, but now what is the new
decision?
I'm going to be a good dad, nomatter where they live, no
matter where I live.
Okay, then what does that mean?
Right, because this is beforeFaceTime and before cell phones
had cameras and this is allbefore that, right?
So what does that mean Well,that means, oh, I've got to go
travel and get them, becausethey're eight and two, that
means I've got to go see themwhen I want to go see them,
(43:22):
which means I also then have topay the bill to go see them and
fly them back and forth, becausethey can't get on a plane by
themselves.
So you go through all of thestories.
So what is that decision?
Okay, so that decision leads tothis decision.
Because of that decision, what'sstep three?
Well, what's the plan to pullthis off?
So, step one make peace.
Step two make a decision.
Step three make a plan.
And then, of course, when youmake a plan that sounds good,
when you draw it out on paper ora chalkboard or a whiteboard,
(43:46):
but then next step four is nowyou've got to make it happen.
And making it happen is usuallya series of commitments that
you must repeat on a daily,weekly, monthly, yearly basis,
long after the feeling you madeit in has passed.
Because, in theory, flying backand forth to Texas, which is
where they grew up, from Vegasis, depending on the time of the
(44:08):
year, that's, a $400 flight toa $700 or $800 flight.
At one time it was a $1,300flight because, of something
going on with fuel and I have togo there and then I have to get
them to come back, so I got topay for their ticket.
So that's how MindShift wasstarted.
I didn't birth the wordMindShift until 2019, when I
(44:28):
started the podcast and Irealized that I wanted to talk
to entrepreneurs and leaders,inspired people that I knew and
I had been associated with, andtalk to them about their
MindShift moments.
And I call it the path frominspiration to realization.
And then, when life knocks youdown, from breakdown to
breakthrough yeah, and it's justthe way I saw my life.
(44:51):
So you can be inspired aboutsomething, but how do you make
it happen?
How do you get to the goal?
And then, oh, but along the wayyou're going to have bumps and
bruises and roadblocks andchallenges and things aren't
going to go right, and failuresand setbacks and all those
things that people call it.
Then what did you do when thathappened and how did you get to
the other side of that?
And so that's what MindShift isabout.
It happens in my business life,it happens at the agency, it
(45:11):
happens in every day, and that'ssort of the birth of MindShift.
We started podcasting July.
We started our first episodeJuly of 2019, july 19, 2019.
I think we, just at the time ofrecording this, we just
released episode 287 yesterdayyesterday, as a matter of fact.
So, and you, I have to say,annika, you have been an
incredible inspiration to sortof the rebirth of my journey as
(45:34):
a podcaster, because it startedto feel a little bit of a.
You've taught me a lot aboutthe things that I haven't done
to really take the show to thenext level, and your dedication
and commitment to podcasting andthe model of media that we're
part of in that group and I, youknow I've been an entrepreneur
over here, but I'm not a mediaguy, so I'm learning to be a
media guy.
(45:54):
You've been extremely helpful,so I definitely want to shout
you out for that, because it'sbeen a pleasure watching you and
listening to you and learningfrom you, and I really
appreciate our collaborations.
Speaker 2 (46:04):
Oh, thank you, Daryl, I do too.
I just I love your expertiseand how knowledgeable you are,
how willing you are to shareyour knowledge, particularly
like today on this podcastepisode where people are
learning secrets that they mightnot read about If they're just
trying to Google how do we doFacebook ads?
(46:24):
Or if they're just goingthrough the meta system or
Google system.
So what's next?
You have this shift.
You have a book that you areworking on.
Is that going to be releasedthis year?
Speaker 3 (46:37):
Yeah, it'll be out this year.
It's funny, the project of thebook has been one of my worst
procrastination projects I'veever.
It's very interesting on thesurface.
You think certain entrepreneurs, you look at certain things
that people have done and I havea demon called procrastination.
That is just a battle.
It's been a battle forever forme.
That being said, I started thebook.
I hired a coach, sat down and Isaid, hey, help me write this
(46:59):
thing, help me do the thing.
I got chapter one done, but Iwas wrestling and I'll tell you
why I stopped.
The book will come out and thebook is for entrepreneurs, and
specifically Annika, it's forentrepreneurs.
There's a statistic in theUnited States that has been
haunting me from the agency sideforever, and that is 91% of
small businesses in Americanever spend more than $1,000 or
(47:20):
invest more than $1,000 a monthin marketing to grow their
business.
81% of small businesses.
According to the studies fromthe people who have way more
money than me to study thisstuff, 81% of all small
businesses in America are oneperson businesses.
And then a number that reallycame to light on my agency side
is that about 95% of all smallbusinesses make less than a
(47:43):
million dollars a year in grossrevenue and most small business
owners 60 something percent ofsmall business owners make only
about $55,000 a year in theirentrepreneurship endeavor and
I'm like you should have keptthe job.
You left the job to go make50,000 and take all the stress
(48:03):
on.
So I have a heart to help andso the book name was going to be
the Lean Growth Method, whichis a philosophy that I've been
teaching and I've used, and it'sa philosophy of seven pillars
that I've used to grow mybusiness over the years, largely
because I was one of the 81% atone time and I know what it's
like to live on a couch, start abusiness with nothing, grow it,
(48:25):
hustle, grind, and also I knowwhat burnout looks like.
I know what it looks like in areal way.
I put on 30 something pounds, Ihad high blood pressure.
I did all that and I was likethis is going to end bad.
Right, it's going to end bad.
So my intention behind the booknow the book title is going to
be changed.
I'm not going to say the nameof the book today because I
(48:46):
haven't trademarked the name,but we did land the domain.
But the theory of the book ishow do smaller sole practitioner
entrepreneurs get a businessmodel built into their business
so that they can reach the sevenfigure mark.
Because I'm concerned with anumber of things.
Number one the longevity ofthat business meaning.
(49:07):
Is that business going to diewith you?
Number two are you leavinganything for those that come
behind you in your name, likegenerationally speaking?
Are you creating anything thatwill live beyond you?
And number three it shouldn'tbe stressful and hard and you
only make 60 grand a year when Iknow you're talented and you
(49:28):
probably left something making abuck 30, right, that is
something that I can fix.
I know I can fix it.
I've watched companies on themarketing side and this is the
book is going to largely beabout marketing because that's
one of the core essences of howI've done things.
But we're also going to,through the Academy address,
team building, superstar systems.
I mean some of the things thatgo outside of that.
But it was a challenging pivotfor me on the book because I was
(49:50):
trying to.
I made a mistake.
I made a mistake and I wastrying to write the book for two
different people and that wasreally what hit me as a marketer
.
I made my damn mistake and Ididn't realize that I was really
trying to write it for twodifferent people.
And the problem was, every timeI sat down to write, I was just
stuck and I'm like this is notcoming out the way it's supposed
to come out, so there'ssomething wrong.
(50:10):
And so bless Tamika Sims forbeing patient with me.
I hired her, she's been with me, she's helped authors write
over hundreds several hundredauthors write books.
And then every time we wereshowing up the meeting I wasn't
moving forward.
I felt bad and I said listen,I'm probably a very bad client
for you right now.
I said but I am stuck and Ineed to step back away from this
project and rethink why I'mstuck.
It's not that I don't know thematerial.
(50:31):
And it turned out, annika, thatI just I realized I was writing
a book for two different peopleand I had to decide who am I
writing this book for?
Because it's not for me.
I already know this stuff.
It's not for me.
And I felt like I got to getclear of who in the world this
book is for.
And we did get clear.
I got clarity on that.
So we're about to restart thatand I do believe it'll be out
before the year is out, for sure.
Speaker 2 (50:52):
Well, you've given us a little taste of who you are,
Daryl, all of the differentthings that you have expertise
in your journey, your podcast,which I encourage everybody to
listen to, and the best way tofind out more is through your
own branded website,DarylEvansnet, where people can
kind of poke and push buttonsand learn more.
Speaker 3 (51:15):
Yeah, I'll pass.
Go through DarylEvansnet andanywhere on social at Mr Daryl
Evans, on almost every platformand wherever you are listening
to this, watching this.
I am the type of person thatit's never profit first when we
have a conversation.
If you have a question,anything that's piqued your mind
or your interest, I'm happy toanswer it.
If you DM me, I'll be the onewho replies.
If you find my email and emailme, I'll be the one to reply.
(51:38):
Even though I do have a team myassistant does look at my
emails.
I just believe in one-to-oneconnection.
Even though we are a verydigital I'm a digital native.
Now I believe in the power ofrelationships and honoring the
time you spend here watchingthis show through Annika's
platform, and so if you have aquestion, feel free to reach out
on any subject.
I'm happy to be a resource.
Speaker 2 (51:55):
Fantastic.
Well, thank you, daryl Evans.
It's been such a pleasurehaving you on the show and this
is to be continued.
I know we have many more thingsin the works, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (52:06):
Thank you.
Thank you, Annika.
Speaker 2 (52:07):
Absolutely.
Thank you to everybody who iswatching or listening.
Come back, follow and keep intouch with us.
Let us know what kind ofcontent you want to see, what
questions you have, so we canbring back the best innovators
to help you make your journey alittle bit easier.
Speaker 1 (52:23):
To learn more about the Master of Science in Digital
Media Management program, visitus on the web at dmmuscedu.
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